Recommendations chart progressive course for city

Saturday

Sep 7, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Consultant Ernie Tompkins, who guided the Lexington Strategic Planning Committee, voiced the concern of anyone who has ever worked on a long-range effort. "We want this to be a working document, not a piece of art that sits on the shelf," he said Thursday during a workshop in which the committee presented its recommendations to the city council. In one regard, brainstorming and coming up with great-sounding ideas is the easy part, even though it involves many hours and a lot of hard work. Implementing those ideas can be the challenge.

Consultant Ernie Tompkins, who guided the Lexington Strategic Planning Committee, voiced the concern of anyone who has ever worked on a long-range effort. "We want this to be a working document, not a piece of art that sits on the shelf," he said Thursday during a workshop in which the committee presented its recommendations to the city council. In one regard, brainstorming and coming up with great-sounding ideas is the easy part, even though it involves many hours and a lot of hard work. Implementing those ideas can be the challenge.Few Lexington residents would take issue with most of the recommendations, which include better public relations, attracting new businesses, improving transportation, offering youth recreation opportunities and more. One of the positive developments out of the committee's work was the realization that the city council already is working on some areas, such as business and job development along with arts and entertainment offerings. The key now will be to incorporate the other recommendations into future goals and see that they come to fruition. Lexington government has a history of taking the suggestions of its citizen-led planning committees seriously and acting on them, and there's no reason to believe that won't happen again. But perhaps the idea of painting a chopped sandwich on the water tower off South Main Street does need a bit more scrutiny.Another long-range effort involves the use of the Wil-Cox Bridge in county tourism and recreation efforts. The Davidson County Commissioners, who received some criticism when they agreed to take control of the bridge from the N.C. Department of Transportation to save it from demolition, heard an update on the bridge Thursday. The county will take control in the spring of 2014, and the bridge will ferry people and bikes from one side of the Yadkin to the other rather than vehicles. The bridge resides at a key point along the Daniel Boone Heritage Canoe Trail, and its historic significance — it's the longest of the six remaining open spandrel concrete arch style bridges in the state — could also be a drawing card if promoted properly.Yet another potential ramification of voting changes approved by the North Carolina General Assembly involves new voting machines, and this one could hit taxpayers in the wallet. The law requires only paper ballots starting in 2018, a step backward from the technological age in which we life. It's another effort to address a potential problem — software manipulation of election results — that hasn't occurred. Davidson County might have to spend $683,000 to meet all the requirements. Commissioners would certainly rather spend that money elsewhere should the estimates hold true, but they will have no choice but to comply with the law and fork out the cash.